JOHNNY Ó CONNOLLY

This one was the "king" of the melodeon. Yet it is his son I will talk to you today, Johnny Óg Connolly.

Johnny Óg has always been interested in diatonic accordion since he learned the basics at the age of 9 and two years later he was already winning his first prizes.

After giving up his teaching career to devote himself to music, he began touring in England and America. In 1990 he recorded his first album. After accompanying Sean Keane and Lord of the Dance, he continued his tours and recorded no less than five albums.

Johnny Óg, although preferring the two-row accordion, intended to get to the melodeon to honour his father when he was no longer able to play it. His father's sudden Alzheimer's disease prompted him to get started.

It is therefore as a tribute to his father that he has just recorded an album of sixteen tracks Fear Inis Bearachain, almost all with a melodeon. The title of the album refers to his father's birthplace in Connemara.

There are thirty-three tunes, about nine of which were composed by Johnny Óg. Most of them come from Connemara like the sean-nós Pota Mór Fataí. Jigs, hornpipes, reels, barndances, waltzes follow one another at a frantic pace. Two tunes by the Flanagan brothers, musicians of the American golden age in the 1920s, are included in the repertoire: Flanagan's and Kimmel's Jig, as well as three jigs referring to the places where his father lived: Fear Inis Bearachain, Fear Londan and Fear Bhoston. And let us mention the superb lullaby composed by Johnny Óg: Suantraí James agus Eilidh Patricia.

Supported by five musicians on guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and flute, Johnny Óg takes us on one hour of pure pleasure where the staccato rhythms and ornamentations inherent to the melodeon are legion.

It is also an invitation to look back and listen again to Johnny Connolly Sr.'s recordings.

Cló Iar Chonnacht CICD 206 - www.cic.ie